It was maddening. After departing San Francisco in September 2015 and crossing America on my campaign bus to post a Transhumanist Bill of Rights to the US Capitol, the single-page document wouldn't stick to the sandstone wall. Standing on the steps near Capitol Hill's main entrance, I began ripping off more masking tape to try to help my document adhere better. Then I heard the footsteps and yelling behind me. Posting anything on the US Capitol is illegal. Within seconds, police and soldiers carrying M-16s had me surrounded, ordering me to back away.

I turned to everyone and explained what transhumanism was: a social movement that wants to use science and technology to radically change the human species. I told them why posting the Transhumanist Bill of Rights was so important: it defended the right of humans to experiment with technology on their bodies; it gave personhood to future sapient individuals such as AI; and it established the core transhumanist aim that people have a universal right to live indefinitely through science.

A guard clutching his machine gun less than a metre away warned me I was going to be arrested. I pondered this, but turned back to the building and re-posted the document on it. The thing was, this wasn't just any document. Nor was transhumanism just any movement. Both were inescapably bound to the future of humankind. And this small act of civil disobedience was just the first step of a long journey - one of radical evolution that would involve human beings uploading their minds into machines, replacing their hearts with bionic ones and using CRISPR genome-editing tech to grow gills so they could breathe underwater. The guard looked at me as if I was insane.

In March 2013, I published a novel called The Transhumanist Wager. The book asks a simple question: how far would you go to fight an anti-science world in order to live indefinitely through transhumanism? Protagonist Jethro Knights would start a world war - and does so in the book. It can be seen as a political manifesto, and although I don't believe in all of the book's Nietzschean philosophy, 18 months after publishing it I announced that I was running for the US presidency. I really do want to create a science-minded world, and I think humanity's well-being and happiness would be better off for it.

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" Transhumanism isn’t just any movement; it’s inescapably bound to the future of humankind"Zoltan Istvan, entrepreneur and transhumanist

Will AI solve all the world's problems when it arrives? Will sex disappear as we install microchips in our brains that stimulate pleasure zones? Will we double our children's IQ with gene-editing techniques and nanotechnology? The questions are endless, the ethics murky. Nonetheless, companies - many of which are where I live in San Francisco - are already working on all these ideas.

My goal with my transhumanist evangelism and the political Transhumanist Party I lead is to spread awareness of the questions, and - on occasion - attempt qualified answers. It's tough going, to say the least. Transhumanist activism is a new concept, and even my Transhumanist Bill of Rights won't stick to a slick historic wall.

While I never expected to win the US elections in 2016, I saw my campaign as a way to share transhumanism with the world and to help launch a crucial aspect of futurism that was missing: transhumanist activism. With two years of campaigning behind me, it's been a success, with many milestones reached.

The formation of the US Transhumanist Party in October 2014 helped launch a dozen other transhumanist initiatives around the world - including the creation of futurist parties with their own candidates. There are now a handful of transhumanist politicians running for office around the world.

Another major milestone was the Immortality Bus tour which ended in December 2015 in Washington DC. In a vehicle shaped like a huge coffin as a symbol against death, my team and I spent four months crossing America spreading the transhumanism gospel. Media attention was intense and we held rallies, staged street protests and met the public on transhumanist issues.

In November 2015, we drove the bus uninvited to the 32,000-person strong Church of the Highlands in Alabama. The first 30 minutes went well. My team, two journalists and I wandered around the huge campus and were even given a tour by a pastor. Then the congregation members began Googling transhumanism. Within minutes the campus was put on lockdown. Gun-toting church members escorted us off the property.

Transhumanism will lead humanity forward to understand what seems like a simple truth: that the spectre of ageing and death are unwanted, and we should strive to control and eliminate them.

Today, the idea of conquering death with science is still seen as strange. So is the idea of merging with machines - one of transhumanists' most important long-term goals. But once bionic eyes are better than human eyes - something that will likely happen within the next decade or so - the elective upgrades will start. So will using robots for household chores and getting chip implants (I have one in my hand). So will CRISPR genetic editing create a new age of curing of disease and enhancing our physical form.

Embracing transhumanism will become normal, and we will become a civilisation that seeks to upgrade our bodies and lives much like we currently upgrade our smartphones.

Zoltan Istvan is a US-based entrepreneur and transhumanist

This article was first published in the December 2016 issue of WIRED magazine